Dubai Chocolate Bar

It's funny how food has trends that come and go. Recently, Dubai chocolate has been HUGE... not to mention expensive! What is it? Basically, think of peanut butter, only instead, make it out of pistachios. Then, mix that pistachio butter (or pistachio cream) with toasted, crispy shreds of phyllo pastry (for a bit of crunch). These toasted pastry shreds are called kadayif or kataifi. The pistachio cream and kataifi mixed together are your creamy/crunchy filling. Surround that in chocolate to make a candy bar and you have a version of Dubai chocolate.

Because it can be hard to find and often very pricey, I decided to buy a chocolate bar mold and make some myself. If you use premade kataifi and jarred pistachio cream (you can find at Walmart), it actually was really, really easy. Enjoy!

Dubai Chocolate Bar

Ingredients:

• kataifi
• pistachio cream
• chocolate melting wafers

Directions:

To make six bars that are about 4.5 x 2 x .5 inches, you will need about 15 oz. of melting chocolate, one small jar of pistachio cream and about 1 cup of kataifi. However, you can adjust proportions to your liking. This is just how I did it. Links and such for products below.

1. Mix the entire jar of pistachio cream with your desired amount of kataifi.
2. Melt your chocolate (I did mine in the microwave per the package instructions... 30 seconds, stir, then 15 seconds, stir, and keep going in 15 second intervals until melted).
3. Place about 1 1/2 Tbl of chocolate into the bottom of each of your bar molds (or enough chocolate to make a thin, yet even and complete layer of chocolate. Place molds in fridge or freezer until firm.
4. Mix together your pistachio cream with your desired amount of kataifi. Place a layer of filling over the firm bottom chocolate layer, being careful to leave a gap edge around the filling so that chocolate can filling in down the sides of the bar in the next step. Smooth and even things as best you can. Place in fridge or freezer to firm.
5. Reheat your chocolate if needed and fill in the rest of the mold up to the top with chocolate. Place back in fridge or freezer until set.

Marsha's Notes:

If you pistachio cream has separated from the oil just a bit, that's okay. You are going to use the entire jar, so just scrape it out into a bowl and whisk it back together. Then stir in your kataifi.

My jar was separated.

Fixed!

It's hard to see because the mold is also brown, but I used this Tbl measuring spoon to put a layer of chocolate in the bottom of each compartment of my mold. It took about 1 1/2 Tbl per compartment.

I probably should have taken a picture after I put the filling in, and then a picture once I put the last layer of chocolate on. Oh well.. Here are the bars done. You can see that some of the filling touched the edge of the mold, blocking the chocolate from making a perfect seal, but I can watch for that and be more careful next time. Still tastes delicious!

You can find this at Walmart. It's a 6.7 oz jar.

Kataifi or Kdadyif from Amazon: https://amzn.to/49yPZU5

You will need at least two bags (10 oz. each for a total of 20 oz.) if you use the same chocolate I did. I bag was just not quite enough.

Chocolate bar mold: https://amzn.to/49xc5qd

Easter Candy Pretzel Flowers

Saw this fun craft/treat for Easter and thought it would go great in some snack mix. They were a little fiddly to get together because the M&M's just barely fit on top of the pretzel and using one white chocolate melt was almost not enough "glue" to work with, but in the end, they were cute.

Easter Candy Pretzel Flowers

Ingredients:

• white chocolate melting candy
• Easter colored M&M's
• "Butter Snaps" square pretzels

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 
2. Arrange your pretzels on a baking sheet (lined with a silicone mat) with one white chocolate melting drop on each pretzel. Place in oven for 2 or 3 minutes, or until the chocolate is melted. 
3. Quickly add your M&M's and then place the pan in the freezer for 5-10 minutes to set. One bag of candy made approximately 47 flowers.

Here it is in the Easter snack mix I made.

Marsha's Notes:

• It was super helpful to make these on a silicone lined baking sheet for easy removal once the chocolate was hardened.
• Don't over crowd your baking sheet. The flowers can't touch each other on the pan while setting up or else your M&M's will keep falling off. I would recommend about 20-24 per pan.
• I could only make about 1/2 of the entire batch of flowers before the chocolate would cool off enough to start getting too hard to put the M&M's on, so just attempt to do half a batch at a time (one pan of about 20 flowers).
• A single chocolate melting candy was almost not enough "glue" to hold the M&M's on, so it might be worth just melting a larger batch of chocolate and then spooning the appropriate amount onto the pretzels to make sure you have enough and skip the oven entirely. That would allow you to more slowly do one flower at a time, and you could either keep reheating the bowl of chocolate as needed, or else keep the chocolate in a small crock pot set to warm.
• Because it's spring and flowers are cute, it was fun to do, but for other snack mixes and treats, you could easily just melt the chocolate on a pretzel and then sprinkle, haphazardly the M&M's on top (about 4 or 5 fit pretty well) and save yourself a lot of time, work and frustration. That's what I did below because I melted chocolate on top of too many pretzels for the amount of Easter M&M's I had, so I found a bag of regular M&M's to finish the job. They are super yummy to snack on just like this.